Macrocosm and Microcosm

Schmidt Number: S-2209

On-line since: 7th July, 2002

LECTURE ELEVEN

MAN AND PLANETARY EVOLUTION

It was necessary to add the lecture to-night to the ten announced on
the syllabus, because some of the themes need to be supplemented in
certain respects. You will have realised that if every aspect of these
subjects were to be presented, one would have to speak, not for weeks
but for months, perhaps even for years. At the present time, however,
the essential need in connection with the communications of Spiritual
Science is not so much that the whole range of spiritual-scientific
knowledge shall be presented as concisely as possible but that stimuli
shall be given, not to the intellect only  though that is of
vital importance  but to something else as well. It must be
emphasised again and again, for it belongs to the very essence of
spiritual knowledge, that everything brought down from the higher
worlds through the investigations of Spiritual Science can be grasped
through the concepts and ideas which a man can acquire today during
life in the physical world. There is nothing in Spiritual Science that
cannot be grasped in this way.

But in order fully to understand the great problems which have to be
grappled with in this domain, it is often necessary to tread a long
and arduous path. We need practically the whole range of concepts and
ideas accessible today if we want to have a clear understanding of the
data of spiritual-scientific knowledge and we may each say to
ourselves: I may not yet be able through clairvoyance of my own
to reach the higher worlds, but I can grasp with my intelligence what
is communicated to me. Not everyone who longs inwardly for the
revelations of Spiritual Science is at once capable of taking the
difficult intellectual path to which reference has been made. Hence
one who communicates spiritual knowledge cannot always take it for
granted that all his statements are immediately and invariably
submitted to the test of reason. He is therefore obliged to make a
different assumption, namely, that in every human soul there are
present not only faculties and powers which have been acquired through
long periods of time and have been brought to a certain stage of
perfection. One of these faculties is, of course, the intellect, but
Spiritual Science knows that it has no future. Other faculties,
however, such as the thinking of the heart, will evolve together with
the transformation of man's soul in times to come; new, as yet
undreamed of faculties will develop. The intellect has reached a
zenith and will be incorporated into the future development of the
human soul as a fruit of the present stage of evolution, but intellect
as such can reach no higher level. As well as the soul-faculties that
are known today and point back to man's past, whence from elementary
beginnings they have evolved to their present level, there are others
to which we have been able only to allude prophetically. But just as
faculties that have been perfected today became apparent in
rudimentary beginnings long ages ago, faculties belonging to the
future are already now present as seeds in the soul and will come to
flower in the future. The faculty of acquiring knowledge through the
logic of the heart is not by any means active yet to any great extent
but the aptitude for it is already present in numbers of human beings.
Men have a natural sense of truth in regard to what it will be
possible through the logic of the heart to comprehend fully only in
the future.

Besides addressing himself to the reasoning mind, the spiritual
investigator turns to these faculties that are slumbering within men,
and he assumes that the human soul is organised, not for error and
falsehood, but for truth; that long before the soul, out of its own
deepest knowledge, will recognise and accept the truths brought down
from the higher worlds, spontaneous response in the life of feeling is
already present-in other words, that truth about the higher worlds can
be felt by numbers of human hearts before it is actually
understood.

That there are souls today possessed of this sense for spiritual
truths is proved by the fact that a large number of people are not
satisfied by current explanations of the great problems of existence
and come to Spiritual Science longing to find answers to these
problems. These are people whose higher faculties say Yes
to the communications of Spiritual Science, although at first they
only feel through their natural sense of truth what later on they will
intuitively understand. Thus the spiritual investigator appeals more
directly to the human soul than do other investigators at the present
time. These others try to compel acknowledgment of their findings by
quoting experiments, adducing mathematical proofs and the like, so
that their listeners can hardly do otherwise than admit the validity
of what they say.

The spiritual investigator is in a different position. He must appeal
to far more intimate provinces of the human soul. He is not yet in a
position, like other scientists, always to supply external proofs, but
he knows that the same sense of truth which lies in his own heart is
present in the hearts of all men, and that they, provided only they
understand their own nature, can agree with him spontaneously, even if
they do not yet fully grasp everything he has to impart. Thus he
appeals to the sense of truth in the hearts of men, and leaves it to
the free judgment of souls whether they will agree with him or not. He
does not try to convince by his expositions, but he maintains that
what lives in his soul lives in every human soul and that his task is
to give the stimulus for something which can and should well forth of
itself from every soul. He seeks only to give expression to the truths
which every soul, given sufficient time, could experience in itself.
But because we human beings are dependent upon one another, we should
seek together, especially in matters connected with the spiritual
realm. Spiritual Science should be a stimulus to a common search for
truth.

Only by bearing this in mind can we see in the right light much of
what has been said in the preceding lectures. There must be an appeal
to every soul to see whether it cannot find within itself the
possibility of understanding what has been presented here. Account has
been taken of the fact that understanding cannot be immediate but only
when the stimulus has taken root in the heart, germinates there and
becomes an active force.  In this sense certain supplementary
remarks will now be made.

We reached the point yesterday of speaking about an experience of
clairvoyant vision, namely, that our Earth is the successor of another
planetary evolution, having evolved out of an ancient planetary body
we call the Old Moon (not the present Moon). We also spoke of what
clairvoyant vision sees prophetically, namely the emergence of a new
planet after a state of twilight, after a Pralaya, a condition of
darkness. The Earth will then be transformed into another planetary
body  Jupiter. (Again this is not the Jupiter we know today but
the future incarnation of the present Earth). I have explained that
the Earth passes through successive incarnations, just as the human
being passes from one incarnation to another.

If we extend this thought, the question arises: Did this other planet,
the Old Moon, in turn originate out of some other? Has the Earth had
even earlier incarnations? This is a quite natural question. In order
to be able to answer it we shall have to explore somewhat further
afield. We must remind ourselves first of all how in his daily life
man alternates between the states of waking and sleeping. This has
been a guiding motif through these lectures. In sleep, man is divided,
as it were, into two parts. The physical and etheric, bodies are left
lying in the bed, while the astral body and the Ego pass out into a
spiritual world, into the Macrocosm. Thus in the sleeping state there
is the body that remains visible on the physical plane, together with
the invisible etheric body, and the super-sensible part of man's being,
consisting of astral body and Ego. This latter part is beyond the
range of external investigation and is revealed only when clairvoyant
vision is directed to the human being in the state of sleep.

Now we will ask ourselves whether there is in the external world
something in any way analogous to what is left of man during sleep at
night, something that has a physical and an etheric body? We know that
man's physical body is subject to quite different laws immediately the
etheric body leaves it at death. It then becomes subject to purely
physical and chemical laws and finally disintegrates. The faithful
fighter, which from birth until death maintains the human body intact
during sleep, is the etheric body, or life-body. But man possesses
what we call his life-principle in common not only with the animals
but also with the plant-world as a whole. When we look out into our
environment, we perceive the plant-world all around us. A plant
reveals itself to us as a being which, like man, is not subject
entirely to physical and chemical laws; it follows these only when it
dies. It is the mineral kingdom that follows physical and chemical
laws alone. Primarily, the laws of the mineral kingdom are ascribed to
man's physical body. But this body is permeated by a higher system of
law belonging to the etheric body which abandons the physical body at
death; the latter then becomes subject to purely physical and chemical
laws.

The external part of man which remains in the physical world during
sleep consists of physical body and etheric body. The plants too
consist of physical and etheric bodies. Therefore man has the etheric
body in common with the plants. But there is nevertheless a radical
difference between the physical body of man and the physical body of
the plant; for in man the two bodies  physical and etheric
 are permeated by the astral body and Ego, whereas the plant has
only the physical and etheric bodies. Hence even externally man is
bound to confront us as an essentially different being because in him
these bodies are permeated by the Ego and astral body.

Thus man stands among the beings of the plant-world, similar to them
in his lower members, the physical and etheric bodies and rising to a
higher level by virtue of his, astral body and Ego. In our human
nature we are therefore akin to the plant only in so far as the plant
has developed the two lower members. But in the earthly world we are
dependent upon the plant-world. Physically, man cannot but feel this
dependence. As far as his body is concerned he can dispense with
animal nature; he need not, unless he so chooses, feed on animal
substance, but he needs the plants in order that his physical body may
be able to live in this world. The physical human body presupposes the
existence of the physical body of the plant. Man's physical body as it
is today cannot exist without the environment of a plant-kingdom
provided for it by the present planet.

Now let us think of a man passing over into the state of sleep. He can
do this quite independently of any outer relationship between the Sun
and the Earth; he can sleep at an hour of the day or night
independently of the Sun, though best, indeed, when the Sun is not
shining.

Let us now enquire into the corresponding process in the plant-world.
There things are different. Man can maintain the connection between
his physical and etheric bodies independently of the influence of the
Sun's rays and of the relative position of the Sun to the Earth. This
the plant cannot do. The plant is in a definite respect dependent upon
the relation of the Earth to the Sun. True, there are perennial plants
but they too, together with dying nature, lose something of the
essential characteristics of plant-life in the autumn and must receive
new forces in the spring. When in spring the rays of the Sun regain
their warmth-giving power, plant-life awakens; when in autumn the Sun
begins to lose its power, plant-life passes into a kind of quiescence.
Even the perennials come near the mineral state during the winter;
they preserve their life, but in their woody parts they approximate to
a dying condition. The essential life of the plant dies away in winter
and re-awakens in spring, to reach its highest point of unfolding in
summer. In autumn the plant must let its etheric body go forth from
itself, somewhat as happens in the case of man at the approach of
death.

In the plant and in man the connection between physical and etheric
body is different. The plant is dependent upon the relation of the Sun
to the Earth; man has made himself independent of it. Remembering that
one part of his being is constituted like the plant, and that this
part is in evidence at night when man is asleep and the Sun has
withdrawn, we cannot but realise that the plant is an illustration of
what we should be as human beings if we had not succeeded in
integrating astral body and Ego into our plant-like nature. The plant
presents to us a part of our own being which we could not otherwise
perceive; even the sleeping man does not function like a plant, for
astral body and Ego are working upon him. The plant is an example, an
illustration, of a being which consists only of physical and etheric
bodies. Hence it must be obvious to us that there is not merely a
physical relationship between man and the plant-world but also a moral
and spiritual one.

Man can very easily become aware of this moral and spiritual
relationship to the plant-world by giving big natural feeling free
play. He needs the plants not only for food but also for his inner
life, in order to nourish within himself the feelings and experiences
necessary for his life of soul. He needs the impressions from the
plant-world on the physical plane if his life of soul is to be fresh
and healthy. That is something which cannot be over-emphasised. A
deficiency in the human soul soon becomes apparent if it is shut off
from the fresh, vitalising influence of the plants. In a man who,
through city life, is practically cut off from immediate contact with
the plant-world, someone possessed of deeper insight will always
perceive a certain inner deficiency. It is absolutely true that the
soul suffers harm from the loss of the spontaneous joy and delight
arising from direct contact with the plant-world. This loss is one of
the shadow-sides of modern civilisation to be found chiefly in great
cities. We know that there are people who can scarcely distinguish a
grain of oat from a grain of wheat; yet to be able to do so belongs to
a healthy human nature. This may be regarded as indicative. One must
view with regret any prospect of a future when man might be altogether
deprived of any direct contact with the world of plants.

The following may indicate the deep foundation of this relationship.
Man as a evolving being could not always be in a state of sleep, for
then he could not live. Man has a physical and an etheric body, but he
is only conceivable in his present form through being permeated in the
waking state with astral body and Ego. On the other hand, in the
sleeping state he has no consciousness of the physical world and in
order to have consciousness there he must come down into big physical
and etheric bodies. He begins to have consciousness only when he
plunges down into these bodies. Just as the form in which man stands
before us today would be impossible without astral body and Ego, so we
may also say that with his inner life, with his consciousness of his
Ego, of his feelings and impulses of will, man could not unfold this
consciousness if he did not possess physical and etheric bodies. He
needs these bodies as the foundation for his inner life; it follows
from this that they are the necessary antecedents for the evolution of
his astral body and Ego. Physical body and etheric body must be there
first and astral body and Ego can then enter into them.

So our attention is led back not only to ages when man's form was
different from the form that was his on the Old Moon, but also to ages
when he actually had no astral body or Ego but only a physical and an
etheric body. The physical and etheric bodies had first to be built up
from out of the Macrocosm before they could serve as the necessary
antecedents of astral body and Ego. In a primeval epoch there had to
take place something that in a certain sense happens every morning
when the astral body and Ego emerge from the spiritual world and are
connected with the physical and etheric bodies. Thus astral body and
Ego had at some time to come out of the spiritual world and find
physical and etheric bodies already in existence. Hence before man
could become what he is today in his higher members, his physical and
etheric bodies bad to be prepared by cosmic Powers and Beings without
any co-operation on his part.

Man had first to evolve in a kind of plant-existence before it was
possible for his astral body and Ego to develop. Our thought is
therefore turned to a much earlier age when man evolved out of the
Macrocosm as a kind of plant-like being. Today, the only right
attitude to the plants is to think as follows.  These plants
before us, verdant and blossoming, illustrate in the immediate present
the nature that once was ours before there was within us the
possibility of erring or turning to evil. They show us our human
nature in a primeval epoch when it was not yet filled with impulses
and desires, when it was still in its pristine purity.

But when we associate with this the other factor, that our human
plant-nature, as it is now, is independent of the relative position of
the Sun to the Earth, whereas the plants around us today are dependent
on it, budding as they do in spring and dying in autumn, then we shall
say that we can never have been the same as these plants which are
dependent upon Sun and Earth. An astral body and Ego must have been
able to enter into the plant-like beings which we once were. No astral
body or Ego can enter into the plants of today. Man's physical and
etheric bodies differ from those of the plants in that they are, as we
have seen, independent of the relative position of the Sun to the
Earth. The connection that is present in man between the physical and
the etheric body must have originated under planetary conditions
different from those under which the plants of today originated.

We shall be able to understand these different conditions if we
reflect upon the following.  We know that the cohesion of the
physical and etheric bodies in man is independent of the relative
position of the Sun to the Earth. But is it altogether independent of
the influence and workings of the Sun? No, for without the Sun,
physical and etheric bodies could not exist and be connected with each
other. Unless aftereffects of the Sun's activity were constantly
present, no man could evolve on the Earth. He is dependent on the Sun
but independent of its relative position to the Earth. When the Sun
withdraws its direct, warmth-bestowing force from the Earth it does
not fail to leave behind in the Earth its warmth and health-giving
power. In the fields in the country, even nowadays, deep pits are
often dug in the winter and potatoes laid in them; the potatoes keep
alive because the warming power of the Sun that was outpoured during
summer has withdrawn under the Earth's surface. It remains active
beneath the Earth's surface, preserved through the winter. Even though
the Sun has withdrawn, its effects remain. The coal for our stoves is
taken from the Earth's interior. It was formed in a remote past
through plants having been embedded in the Earth. These plants grew
under the influence of the Sun's warmth and light; with the plants the
Sun's light and warmth from long past ages are drawn forth from the
Earth in order to be put to use. Thus the Earth has the Sun within it
even when the Sun's relation to the Earth changes. In their sprouting
life, the plants of today have something that has been brought into
being by the relative position of the Sun to the Earth. The Earth
needs what it receives from the Sun and preserves this through the
winter. When, owing to the Sun's position, the Earth is not being
warmed directly, the preserved solar warmth is nevertheless present.
Without it, man's physical and etheric bodies could not live. Were man
to be removed from the Earth his life could not continue; he would
perish. The Earth which bears within it the Sun is essential to his
existence.

Under the present conditions of our solar system the Earth does not
directly produce the connection of physical and etheric body which
exists in man, but only that which exists in the plant. The connection
in man must today come about indirectly, but in order that he may
exist at all, man needs the Sun that is stored up and concentrated in
the Earth. So we shall find it intelligible that not only did it
become possible in some past age for man's physical and etheric bodies
to exist, but that this possibility came from the Earth, that these
bodies developed out of a planetary existence as is the cage with the
plant today. Just as today the plant is a child of the Earth, so were
man's physical and etheric bodies the children of an earlier
planetary state of the Earth.

Entirely different conditions must have prevailed at that time.
Spiritual Science points to these different conditions when it reveals
that the Old Moon-state was preceded by another state, one that we
rightly call the Old Sun-state. In this Old Sun-state the Sun could
not shine from outside; otherwise man would have been able to develop
not only as a being with physical and etheric bodies, but already with
astral body and Ego as well. No solar activity could have come from
outside at that time; but without solar activity the physical and
etheric bodies of man could not be formed. Therefore the solar
activity that is preserved today must have been within the Earth
itself; the Earth itself must have generated the effects which today
are produced by the Sun. The Earth was itself Sun at that time.
Therefore if we are looking for an earlier state of our planet we can
only find one in an age when the Sun did not shine from outside; the
effects which now come from the Sun must have proceeded from the Earth
itself. What is visible to the eye of clairvoyance now becomes
comprehensible, namely, that the Earth was preceded by an Old
Moon-state, and this in turn by a state when the Earth itself was a
radiant, warmth-giving body; at that time no plants as we know them
today could be formed, but man's physical and etheric bodies
could come into existence.

It is likely that someone will say at this point that if the Earth was
once a Sun and man had physical and etheric bodies, he would
necessarily have been burnt up. Yes, certainly, if the human physical
body had been as it is now! But it was quite different. The physical
body of man at that time could obviously not have had its present
earthy or solid constituents, not even the fluid constituents, for
water could not have existed in a cosmic body of that nature. But the
aeriform or gaseous state was possible, and certainly what we call the
warmth ether. We are thus led back to an earlier planetary
incarnation of the Earth in which man is found to be prefigured in his
physical and etheric bodies, but under conditions altogether different
from those of today. Solid and fluid matter did not yet exist, but the
foundation of the physical and etheric bodies was present in an
aeriform and fiery state. Man has become what he is today after the
transformation of the Old Sun into the Old Moon and then into the
Earth in its present form. In those ancient periods, man was adapted
to the prevailing planetary conditions. But you can well imagine that
everything in the whole solar system was different. Neither what we
call water or fluid, or the earthy or solid as yet existed, but only
air and warmth. We come here to a state in our solar system so
essentially different from present conditions that it was subject to
laws quite other than those of our Earth today.

But this state itself, which we have called the Old Sun-state,
presupposes yet another. In the Old Sun-state there is already a
connection between fire (or warmth) and air, and between physical body
and etheric body. The physical body cannot exist in material nature
without its etheric body, but the etheric body too must live on the
foundation of the physical body if it is to exist in the material
world. Each body presupposes the other. Therefore man had to find a
physical body already in existence before he could make the connection
between the physical and etheric bodies. This points us back to an
even earlier incarnation of the Earth. On the Old Sun, man was in an
aeriform condition and earlier still he consisted only of warmth. A
further rarefication of the physical was the warmth (on Old Saturn).
We must regard this warmth as the first physical state.
And we must think of the whole solar system as being adapted at that
time to this first planetary condition, the fire- or warmth-state of
our Earth.

We now come to something very remarkable. It is possible for
clairvoyance to look back to a primordial state of pure warmth. We
call this the Old Saturn-state of the Earth. To clairvoyant vision it
is direct reality. We can also think back to such a state. But it has
been emphasised that we must think of everything then as being adapted
to entirely different conditions. We have heard that even when
speaking of the Elementary world a quite different conception of
warmth must be acquired. We cannot even imagine our present fire or
warmth without the existence of the other three states, the gaseous,
the fluid and the solid. It will therefore be comprehensible that the
warmth of Old Saturn was essentially different from our present warmth
or fire. With the change in planetary conditions, everything is
altered and transformed. Today, fire is burning gas or some other
burning substance. But on Old Saturn there was no air or gas. Imagine
warmth permeating all space and then you will feel how warmth becomes
a quality of soul. What we call warmth today is something that
we feel, as for example when we put a finger near a solid object that
is red hot. But during the age of Old Saturn there was nothing solid
in existence; there was nothing but undifferentiated warmth pervading
space. It is only possible to picture it by turning from the notion of
external warmth to that of inner warmth, warmth of soul. When we have
a high ideal our soul glows with warmth; but this works right into the
physical and we become physically warm as well. The blood is warmed
and circulates differently. To a sensitive observer it is quite
evident that warmth experienced in the life of soul works right into
the physical constitution. We must think of this warmth that pervades
man's constitution as the result of some spiritual activity, in
connection with the first planetary incarnation of our Earth, when
spirit and warmth worked together out of the Macrocosm.

If an impression of a soul-and-spiritual nature warms man, it would be
absurd to ask: how does it come about? For no-one can understand how a
high ideal can make a man glow with warmth unless he himself is able
to be warmed by an ideal. Such a process must be understood inwardly.
There are individuals who see that others are inwardly warmed by an
impression of a spiritual nature, but they find this incomprehensible
and they will often be heard saying: Those people are fools.
They get excited by something that leaves me cold! Such an
utterance shows that the speakers are incapable of any similar
experience. If they were, they would find that man's constitution
itself provides the explanation.

What, then, do we need to realise in connection with the warmth of Old
Saturn? How can we understand it? Only by realising that the warmth of
Saturn is born out of the spirit. From the Earth we go back to Old
Moon, from Old Moon to Old Sun, from Old Sun to Old Saturn. But we
realise that Old Saturn issued directly from the spirit.
Therefore we can understand the origin of our Earth by going back to
the spirit-not to a cosmic nebula, but to the spirit, and by picturing
how the beginning of Earth-evolution originated from the combined work
of spiritual Beings.

With this in mind we can understand why it is said in my book,
Occult Science,
that certain Spirits, the Spirits of Will, let their own essence
stream forth. [* See
Chapter IV of Occult Science  an Outline
(1962-63 edition), pp. 115-28.] The Spirits of Personality and then
other spiritual Beings worked with them. Read what is said in that
book of spiritual Beings who let their deeds flow together in the
Macrocosm and through these convergent streams Old Saturn came into
existence. We see here that questioning ceases to have meaning when
the point is reached of explaining how the physical originates from
the spiritual. For if we want eventually to behold the spiritual
Beings who confront us, we no longer ask, Why? in the
ordinary way. A lover of abstractions can go on asking
why? ad infinitum. For example, seeing ruts in the road,
he asks: Why are the ruts there?  Because
wheels made them.  Why did wheels make them?
 Because a cart was driven by.  Who was
in the cart?  A man.  Who was
he?  So-and-so.  Why was he
driving the cart? Here we come to the driver's purpose 
which is the final thing to be asked about, for nobody can get beyond
that by means of questions. And so when great cosmic truths are
presented, questioning ceases to have meaning at a certain point.

Indications have now been given as to how it is possible to understand
what is presented by Spiritual Science. Data must be collected from
very wide domains. The spiritual investigator, however, does not need
to do this. He looks back and sees what the Earth once was and can
describe, for example, what the Earth was like in the Old Sun-state.
At our present stage we can see how the Sun was able to put forth what
the Earth stores within itself for the winter's needs. We remember
that in the autumn, country-folk bury their potatoes because the
effects of the Sun are still in the Earth. Facts have to be collected
from everywhere and when everything is taken into account it will be
seen that Spiritual Science can be verified by facts, provided only we
are able to assemble them all. Facts widely dispersed in the Macrocosm
have been brought together and we have seen how in a far distant past
man himself, the Microcosm, developed through the stages of Old
Saturn, Old Sun and Old Moon. On the Earth he has reached a
provisional termination in his present development.

And finally we ask: Is there something in man that points to the
future? According to yesterday's lecture the human heart is a very
ancient organ. In an entirely different form it was already in
existence on the Old Moon and on the Earth hag simply been
transformed. On the Old Moon there was as yet no brain; but the heart
was in existence and moreover had within it the basis for a future
transformation. Just as a blossom bears within it the seed of the
fruit, so the Old Moon-heart bore within it the Earth-heart.

Are there organs in the human body which already today point
prophetically to the future? There are indeed such organs. True, they
are by no means fully developed today but they will reach greater
perfection and after the decline of other organs will belong to man in
a higher form when he becomes the future Jupiter-man. One such organ
is the larynx. Today it is only on the way towards higher development.
It reveals itself in a germinal state and will become something quite
different in time to come. If we study the larynx in its relation to
the lung, we can say that in a certain way it presupposes the lung, it
evolves on the basis of the lung's existence. But we realise at the
same time that man is still at an imperfect stage with respect to what
he produces in his larynx. Where is the greatest human perfection to
be found today? In that which gives man the possibility of calling
himself an I. This is what sets him above the other beings
of the Earth. Man is an individuality centred in the Ego and it is
this individuality who passes from one incarnation to another. We can
look back into a life which preceded the present life on Earth, then
farther and farther back into the past, and we can also look forward
into the future. Man passes on into his following incarnations with
whatever he has made his own in his Ego. If any one of you could look
back into your earlier incarnations you would find yourself
incarnated, for example, in the Greco-Latin epoch, in the
Egypto-Chaldean epoch, in the ancient Persian epoch, in the ancient
Indian epoch, and so on. But the work accomplished by the human larynx
is not in the same sense bound up with the Ego. What the larynx can do
comes to expression in each incarnation in a different form of speech;
man does not carry it with him from one incarnation to another. Speech
is not something that is individualised today. In the course of
incarnations a man may belong to different peoples and use different
languages, different linguistic idioms. It is therefore clear that
speech is not so intimately bound up with the Ego as thinking is.
Speech is not bound up with our true individuality, with that which
constitutes our real human worth. Speech is something we have in
common with other human beings; it comes to us from conditions
outside. Nevertheless there is no denying that speech is something in
which our inmost self, the spirit, expresses itself. The quality of
feelings and the configuration of thoughts are carried into the sounds
of the words; so that we possess in our larynx an organ through which,
with our individuality, we are part and parcel of something wrought by
the spirit, but not of something we have ourselves wrought. If speech
were not wrought by the spirit, the spirit of man could not express
itself through that medium. If the larynx were unable to capture in
song the tone imparted by the spirit, the human soul could not express
itself through the medium of song. The larynx is an organ which brings
to expression spiritual activities, but not individualised
spiritual activities. The larynx reveals itself to the spiritual
investigator as an organ through which man is membered into a
group-soul which he cannot yet bring to the stage of
individualisation; but the larynx is developing to the point where it
will eventually be able to be a receptacle for a man's individual
activities. In the future, man will so transform his larynx that
through it he will be able to give expression to his own individual
reality. That is only a prophetic indication of a process which we
must call the formation of a germinal organ which will be transformed
in the future. If we pay heed to this we shall find it comprehensible
that as individuals we have no power over what our larynx produces,
that it is given to us by grace and that we must first grow into it
with our individuality. Just as with our own Egohood we are rooted in
ourselves, so with our larynx we are rooted in the Macrocosm as a
whole. Out of the Macrocosm there still flows into us that which makes
us human.

Through our heart we make ourselves men; through the larynx the
Macrocosm makes us men. When in a new incarnation we grow into the
Microcosm, we grow into an organism of which the heart is the centre;
but this organism, this bodily constitution, is unceasingly maintained
by the Macrocosm, the forces of the Macrocosm stream into it. Through
the larynx there streams into us from the Macrocosm something that is
a supreme manifestation of the spirit. There we are linked with the
Macrocosm. We not only receive into ourselves influences from the
Macrocosm but in a certain sense we also give them back, although we
still have no individual control of them. We are born into a
folk-language; we have as yet no individual control over what is
innate in the folk-spirit. Hence a great truth is contained in what is
said at the very beginning of the Bible: that man's earthly evolution
waited until there could be created for him the crowning structure of
his breathing apparatus-the larynx which is created by the spirit,
bestowed by God himself. God breathed into man's nostrils the
breath of life and he became a living soul. This is an
indication of the point of time when there flowed into man that which
is connected with the divine, with the Macrocosm. The Human is
connected with the heart, the Divine with the larynx.

In that man not only breathes but can also transmute his breathing
processes into song and speech produced by the larynx, he has in his
breathing a faculty capable of the highest possible development. Hence
there are good grounds for saying that man is always developing, that
he will rise to higher and higher stages of spirituality. In Oriental
philosophy the highest member that man, as Spirit-Man, will develop in
the future is called Atma  a word derived from
Atmen (breath). But man must himself participate in
the development of this Spirit-Man from the present rudimentary
beginnings. He must work at the development of speech and song in
which, as a transformed breathing process, there are infinite
possibilities.

Having this in mind we shall realise that as soon as man can produce
an actual effect upon his breathing process, this will be a very
potent influence. It may therefore all the more easily happen that
with his present constitution man is not yet ready for it. If
exercises that may be undertaken include any that have to do with
regulating the breathing process, the utmost caution must be applied
to such exercises and the teacher must feel the greatest possible
sense of responsibility. For it was the divine-spiritual Beings
themselves who in their wisdom modified the breathing process in order
to raise man to a higher stage, and because he was not ready they were
obliged to place speech outside the control of his
individuality. Intervention in the breathing process means penetration
into a higher sphere and this demands the very greatest sense of
responsibility. It may be said quite objectively that all the
instructions given so lightheartedly nowadays about this or that mode
of breathing really make the impression of children playing with fire.
To intervene consciously in the breathing process is to invoke the
Divine in man. Because that is so, the laws of the process can be
derived only from the very highest attainable knowledge and the utmost
caution must be used in this domain. At the present time, when there
is so little consciousness of the truth that the spiritual underlies
everything material, people will believe all too readily that this or
that breathing exercise can be advantageous. But once it is realised
that everything physical has a spiritual foundation it will also be
known that any modification of the breathing belongs to the sublimest
of revelations of the spiritual in the physical; it should be
associated with a mood of the soul that is akin to prayer, where
knowledge becomes prayer. Instructions in these profound matters
should be given only when the knower is filled with reverence, with
the realisation of the grace bestowed by those Beings to whom we must
look up, because they send down their wisdom from the heights of the
Macrocosm  heights far greater than we, with our ordinary
knowledge, can scale. The ultimate outcome of Spiritual Science is
that there rings out like a prayer:

May God's protecting ray of blessing
Pervade my growing soul,
That it may everywhere lay hold
Of strength-bestowing forces.
My soul shall vow
To waken in itself
Life-giving might of love,
To spread God's strength
As seed along life's path,
And thus, with all it owns,
To work God's will.

(Provisional translation)

The goal of Spiritual Science is to guide the whole man into the
higher worlds, not merely the thinking man but also the man of feeling
and of will. We can reflect about the things of the world and remain
cold and unmoved in doing so, but we cannot know the higher worlds
without turning our gaze upwards and then inevitably we awaken
impulses of feeling, we draw the impulses for our actions from
knowledge. Those who feel this to be a natural matter of course will
not come to a standstill at that point. They will endeavour to emulate
the great ideals which shine down from the spiritual world. Our will
too, as well as our feeling, becomes devout when we reach the last
test in the quest of spiritual knowledge. Anyone who professes to have
knowledge of the spirit and remains indifferent in his feeling and
will has not been rightly affected by this knowledge. Spiritual
Science culminates in a mood of reverence, and in the dutiful practice
of the principles of action recognised as right. Spiritual
knowledge must be received into the will. When we absorb spiritual
knowledge in its true meaning, something works within our soul like a
spiritual Sun.

But because the facts revealed by spiritual knowledge must be received
into the heart, it is natural that they should flow through our
civilisation by way of communion between human beings. Other knowledge
may well be attained by a hermit, but when the heart is involved, man
feels himself drawn to other hearts. Spiritual knowledge is a bond of
union between men. Hence it is natural that those who have the same
aspiration for a spiritual ideal today feel the urge to come together.
It is of infinite significance that when Spiritual Science spreads in
this way, it brings human beings together, gathers together those who
in a certain sense recognise each other and feel akin. Where else in
the present world of social chaos could we find human beings with whom
we feel inwardly akin? The world is so dismembered today! There are
people who sit side by side in offices or workrooms or factories doing
the same kind of work, but they may be far, far apart in soul! This is
a consequence of modern life. We may be sitting together with others,
yet circumstances are such that we have no understanding of one
another. But if we go somewhere knowing that here are others who have
seen the same light and cherish the same love as we have in our souls,
who revere the same holiest treasure, then we are right to assume that
they have within them something that is akin to our own soul in its
innermost depths. People otherwise strange to us may then reveal
themselves to be the bearers of an inner being whom we know and we
realise that there can be kinsfolk in the spirit.

In the measure in which these ideals spread, we shall find kindred
souls over the whole globe. Therewith something is said of untold
significance for our age, for modern spiritual life. Knowledge brought
down from heights of spirit changes human beings, makes them into
individuals who in the essential part of their nature are related in
spirit, however far apart and indifferent to one another they may have
been. In spreading such knowledge we not only spread wisdom of the
higher worlds but something that engenders love between human souls.
We do not promulgate human brotherhood by means of programmes, but we
lay the foundations of brotherhood whenever similar ideals are kindled
in a number of human beings, whenever others look up as we ourselves
do to what we hold sacred.

Every course of lectures should not only enrich our souls with
knowledge but also, imperceptibly, help us to learn how to love other
human beings more, how to weld them together spiritually. Lectures on
Spiritual Science are given not merely in order to spread knowledge
but to lead men towards the great goal of brotherhood, to promote
human love and the progress of the human soul in the warmth of love.
This has been the aim of these lectures too.

We have endeavoured to bring together, at times from far-off regions,
knowledge that may give us understanding of the world, of its
existence and of its spiritual origin. By rising to the spirit, as is
our duty, we find the innermost core of our own being through true
self-knowledge. True love is rooted in the spirit. Only when a man
finds his fellow-man in the spirit does he find him with indissoluble,
unswerving love. This is the life-giving element in all human
existence. Spiritual Science brings a formative, life-giving force
into the soul. And when through what would otherwise remain
dispassionate, intellectual knowledge we feel warmed in soul to such a
degree that this warmth brings individuals closer to one another, then
we have received such knowledge in the right way. Even a presentiment
of transition from the logic of thinking to the logic of the heart
will tend to bring individuals together. The logic of thinking may
lead to intense egoism, but the logic of the heart overcomes egoism
and makes all men participants in the life of mankind as one whole. If
we have permeated ourselves with the truths of the spirit as with
living waters, then we have understood and grasped the impulse that
should come from Spiritual Science.

If we go away from a Lecture-Course such as this, not only with an
enriched store of knowledge but also with an enhanced warmth of soul
which will last for the rest of our lives, the Course will have
fulfilled its aim. May something at least of this ideal have been
achieved! However lengthy the lectures may have been it lies in the
nature of things that only little can have been given. The finest
result would be if in individual hearts and souls so much warmth were
generated that it would remain until our next meeting. May its glow
continue until the time in anticipation of which I now say to you from
the bottom of my heart: Auf Wiedersehen!